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Old 8th Dec 2017, 11:16 am   #1
60 oldjohn
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Default Phone accounts / bills

Prompted by picture of a line of phone switch board operators, how did the phone companies keep track of phone calls?


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Old 8th Dec 2017, 12:01 pm   #2
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

The operators filled out a "ticket" for each call. This was forwarded to Telephone Accounts Group (TAG) who produced the bills and sent them to the subscribers.

The operator positions had timers, known as clocks, to time calls where necessary.
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Old 8th Dec 2017, 10:04 pm   #3
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

And in times-past when calls weren't all 'operator-connected' each line had a digital [yes, it had rows of numbers!] meter associated with it.

A thing like the old mechanical 'mileometers' on cars: drums on a spindle numbered 0-9 round the edge with a little peg that flipped the higher-order digit over when passing 0. They were solenoid operated by way of metering pulses.

There would be a whole wall of these in a typical large exchange. Every quarter they would be photographed to record what had been used !
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Old 8th Dec 2017, 10:52 pm   #4
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

I thought calls may have been recorded on paper, but never seen it or the clocks. The operators must have had to listen in to hear when the call was ended, but how many calls at once did they have to monitor?
Ah the meters that brought back memories, When I was at Infant school we had a visit to Hull Telephones a privately owned exchange, They had a small counter at the side of each set of selectors, rows and rows of them. I think it may have always been automatic with no operators in sight. in the late 1980s ? they introduced "System X" I think. It was computer based and had all the features of modern phones.


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Old 8th Dec 2017, 10:58 pm   #5
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

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Originally Posted by 60 oldjohn View Post
The operators must have had to listen in to hear when the call was ended, but how many calls at once did they have to monitor?

John.
Indicators associated with each cord circuit showed when either party on a call hung up. The ticket would be placed under a clip next to the cord circuit, so the operator knew which ticket was for which call.
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Old 9th Dec 2017, 12:13 am   #6
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

For a price you could have the meter in your premises (presumably a duplicate). They were advanced by the line reversals mentioned earlier in the thread. Anyone who had to pass on charges might have had one.
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Old 9th Dec 2017, 12:22 am   #7
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

At the Milton Keynes museum they have a large room detailing the history of telephony. They have a fully working Uni-selector exchange where you can pick up a phone and dial another phone in the room. It's fascinating to watch the selectors as you dial- truly a marvel of mechanical/ electrical engineering.
As part of the exchange is a bank of call recorders exactly as described in post 3. Each digital recorder (about 2" x 1") has a serial number which I assume is allocated to a particular subscriber.
They also have fully working 'jack plug' exchange which you can operate yourself. It's a very 'hands on' museum!
Well worth a visit.
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Old 9th Dec 2017, 12:07 pm   #8
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

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Originally Posted by 60 oldjohn View Post
I thought calls may have been recorded on paper, but never seen it or the clocks. The operators must have had to listen in to hear when the call was ended, but how many calls at once did they have to monitor?
The operator recorded the initial fee when she connected the call, then withdrew and attended to other calls. When the time period was up a Meter lamp would flash on that cord circuit if the call was still in progress and she would enter the call and ask if you wanted another three minutes, and if you did she'd record that on the ticket.

When call finished she withdrew the cords as usual and passed the completed ticket on for billing.
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Old 9th Dec 2017, 6:56 pm   #9
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

I might have it wrong but I don't think so. As I recall it only private home phones were billed by timing. The old A/B telephone kiosks you could talk as long as you wanted once you'd put your 4d in. It was only with the modern slot telephones that timing of 3 minutes for 2p came in.

As I say my memory might be incorrect.
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Old 9th Dec 2017, 7:29 pm   #10
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

AFAIR you only used to get unlimited local calls for your 4d. Longer distance calles were charged on a "per 3 mins" basis.
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Old 9th Dec 2017, 7:36 pm   #11
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

Yes that would make sense. I can't remember if long distance calls had to be made via the operator in that case when using an A/B box.
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Old 9th Dec 2017, 8:37 pm   #12
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

Prior to the introduction of STD there were no Local Call Timers in small exchanges, so you could talk all day for a fixed fee. However this thread is about operator controlled calls. In that case at three minute intervals the operator could add more time to the ticket or ask the caller to insert more money.
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Old 9th Dec 2017, 10:18 pm   #13
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Originally Posted by 1100 man View Post
At the Milton Keynes museum they have a large room detailing the history of telephony. They have a fully working Uni-selector exchange where you can pick up a phone and dial another phone in the room. It's fascinating to watch the selectors as you dial- truly a marvel of mechanical/ electrical engineering.
As part of the exchange is a bank of call recorders exactly as described in post 3. Each digital recorder (about 2" x 1") has a serial number which I assume is allocated to a particular subscriber.
They also have fully working 'jack plug' exchange which you can operate yourself. It's a very 'hands on' museum!
Luckily I don't have to go that far! I've just photographed some of the various methods of timing the various meters. A couple show a 'Clock 44' http://www.britishtelephones.com/clocks/clock44.htmon a CBS No 2 switchboard that was 'Braunton' exchange in Devon. The Clock 44 was only provided on the first two cord circuits which were used to time trunk calls. The Clock 44 on the cord circuit was switched to 'Start' to time the call in minutes and tenths of a minute - it was connected to a 'Clock 46' http://www.britishtelephones.com/clocks/clock46.htm- a pendulum type master clock which put pips out every three minutes and alerted the operator to ask for more money. The later Clock 44B has two positions - left for 'Ordinary' subs calls and to the right for CCB (Coin Collecting Box) calls. Other pictures show the meters on a UAX13 A rack for the 50 lines that the rack served. And another photo shows the meters on the oldest working former GPO auto exchange that served a village in Northumberland from 1929 until 1950. It has larger older pattern meters with four digits. Both types of meters have a label on the from showing the number of the line it related to. Earlier manual exchanges didn't have Clocks 44 in the cord circuit. They relied on a Clock No 1 or the earlier Clock No 18 http://www.britishtelephones.com/clocks/clock13.htm mounted above each position and it was up to the operator to note the time that the call started and finished ! I have one of those exchanges - a small 20 line wall mounted switchboard that was 'Glenmoriston' exchange from 1925 until 1955 - it is the only surviving CBS No 3 exchange of the 475 that the GPO had! It has a metal clip for the 'timing ticket' to be clipped under.
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Old 10th Dec 2017, 2:59 pm   #14
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boom View Post
I might have it wrong but I don't think so. As I recall it only private home phones were billed by timing. The old A/B telephone kiosks you could talk as long as you wanted once you'd put your 4d in. It was only with the modern slot telephones that timing of 3 minutes for 2p came in.

As I say my memory might be incorrect.
Timing of local calls was only introduced when STD came in both for coinbox calls and ordinary subscriber's calls. Ordinary subscribers could dial (prior to about 1958) up to 15 miles and calls were charged by a 'multi-metering' facility - 1 unit up to 5 miles, 2 units up to 7.5 miles, 3 units up to 10 miles and four units up to 15 miles. That was replaced by 'group charging' depending on the distance between the 'Group Switching Centre' exchange

Up to the late 1950's, residential subscribers' rental included free local calls up to a certain limit. For instance in 1957, the line rental for a residential subscriber (outside London and the other Director areas )was £2 5s 0d but that included 10s 5p worth of calls per half year as part of their 'subscription' . This had been around since the days pf the National Telephone Company.

Rural party lines were a little different. They had a lower line rental in 1957 , the rental was £1.10s.0d provided there were at least two subscribers per line of the line. The rental included unlimited calls on the exchange to which the line was connected!! For those who have not come across 'rural party lines' before, they dated back the early days where the line rental rose rapidly after the first mile so a number of folk would share the same line and were called by code ringing by the operator. Eventually they were replaced by Country Satellite Exchanges (CSX) where up ten subscribers shared two pairs of wires but with privacy & individual ringing. Their calls were still made by the operator who timed the calls if needed in the sae way that their manual exchange used.
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Old 10th Dec 2017, 3:17 pm   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pellseinydd View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boom View Post
I might have it wrong but I don't think so. As I recall it only private home phones were billed by timing. The old A/B telephone kiosks you could talk as long as you wanted once you'd put your 4d in. It was only with the modern slot telephones that timing of 3 minutes for 2p came in.

As I say my memory might be incorrect.
Timing of local calls was only introduced when STD came in both for coinbox calls and ordinary subscriber's calls. Ordinary subscribers could dial (prior to about 1958) up to 15 miles and calls were charged by a 'multi-metering' facility - 1 unit up to 5 miles, 2 units up to 7.5 miles, 3 units up to 10 miles and four units up to 15 miles. That was replaced by 'group charging' depending on the distance between the 'Group Switching Centre' exchange

<SNIP>
Forgot to mention, one little BT exchange -' Foula ' (0393 3) - had untimed local calls until mid-July 1995! All calls between the subscribers on the remote island of Foula - way to the west of the Shetland Islands - were untimed until then. Up until 1995, all calls to and from the island were STD calls and timed as the exchange was so remote. They were still dialling two digits to reach each other - the last public 'electro-mechanical exchange' in service. You can hear an excerpt from a BBC Radio 4 programme 'The Secret Life of Telephones' about Foula telephones by dialling Lerwick (01595) 708222 - a normal geographic number - so may be a free call with many call packages! Or for those connected to CNet dial 0393 3 32 27 .

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Old 11th Dec 2017, 11:02 am   #16
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

I worked in a trunk exchange (Rampart TSU) and we had meters to charge back to the local areas as well, before the cameras came in in the mid 80's it was 'selected a T2A and go do the meter readings' with a typical Clerical person.
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Old 11th Dec 2017, 1:51 pm   #17
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

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Originally Posted by emeritus View Post
AFAIR you only used to get unlimited local calls for your 4d. Longer distance calls were charged on a "per 3 mins" basis.
Something more than a few on here doesn't know about, as the "J" key made calls free. Or at least in the local area. Sometimes, ( as in A team speak), if you could get an operator that knew you /recognised your voice call were always free. It was only in the larger places that this camaraderie fell down. Even with STD, all official numbers were not charged.
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Old 11th Dec 2017, 6:23 pm   #18
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Originally Posted by AC/HL View Post
For a price you could have the meter in your premises (presumably a duplicate). They were advanced by the line reversals mentioned earlier in the thread. Anyone who had to pass on charges might have had one.
Subs Private Meters didn't use a line reversal. They had extra equipment connected in the line at the exchange. This inserted a balanced (with reference to earth) 50 Hz pulse each time the meter operated. Hence the need for an earth at the subs premises.

I had one for many years from the mid-1970's when they were very cheap to rent (£1.00 approx. per quarter). If you had one, the PO/BT couldn't make you a party line as it only worked on DELs !

The service was finally withdrawn in 2008 and BT only offered CPA (Called Party Answer - line reversal) and left any 'metering' to the end equipment.

How far we've come from an operator timing the call with a clock and writing the info on a 'ticket' for the clerical folk to work the cost out!
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Old 11th Dec 2017, 9:14 pm   #19
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My mistake, thanks for correcting it.
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Old 11th Dec 2017, 9:37 pm   #20
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Default Re: Phone accounts / bills

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldcodger View Post
Something more than a few on here doesn't know about, as the "J" key made calls free. Or at least in the local area. Sometimes, ( as in A team speak), if you could get an operator that knew you /recognised your voice call were always free. It was only in the larger places that this camaraderie fell down. Even with STD, all official numbers were not charged.
Well my post on how to avoid charges using pulse dialling was deleted but this it strikes me is the same but allowed its avoiding charges.

Any coments from Mods?

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